Carrfields expands South Island footprint with Agricentre South Kubota dealership acquisition
Two of the South Island’s agricultural machinery dealers are undertaking strategic changes designed to deliver even greater specialist support to farmers.
Group managing director of Carrfields, Craig Carr says Krone’s products complement their current machinery portfolio.
Ashburton-based Carrfields has signed a deal with Kubota NZ for the retail distribution rights of Krone products in Canterbury, effective September 1.
Krone farm machinery has been manufactured in the small village of Spelle in northern Germany for more than 100 years. Its globally renowned products include disc mowers, tedders, rotor rakes, forage wagons, round and square balers and forage harvesters.
Carrfields will provide potential and existing Krone customers with sales, parts and specialist servicing of Krone products from its Ashburton and Templeton locations with a highly trained team of technicians.
Craig Carr, group managing director of Carrfields, says this decision is a positive step in the evolution of both business operations in the region.
“Krone, like Carrfields, is a family-owned business with a comprehensive range of products that are an excellent fit and complement our current machinery portfolio which includes the well-established global brands of Horsch, MacDon and Novag,” he says.
“We are delighted to offer a very high-quality product suite that is a natural replacement for the range of equipment that we used to represent, especially for our agricultural contractors and large-scale farmers.”
John Tulloch, Krone NZ sales manager, says they are excited and pleased to now have Carrfields as part of their network.
![]() |
|---|
|
Craig Carr, group managing director of Carrfields. |
“While there are many synergies between our businesses, we are especially impressed with Carrfields’ focus on looking after their customers and understanding what it takes to give great service.
“We observed this from the sidelines over many years. The great market share results and customer satisfaction they achieved in the past have clearly shown that Carrfields is an ideal partner for us as we look to build our presence and customer base across Canterbury.”
Due to current arrangements with Landpower, which took back their Canterbury Claas Harvest Centre franchise in 2023, Carrfields will be unable to sell Krone forage harvesters until January 2026. In the interim, sales of forage harvesters will be conducted via Krone NZ.
With global milk prices falling, the question is when will key exporting countries reach a tipping point where production starts to dip.
Rural contractors want the Government to include a national standard for air plans as part of its Resource Management Act reforms.
The biggest reform of local government in more than 35 years is underway.
An industry-wide project led by Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is underway to deal with the rising number of feral pests, in particular, browsing pests such as deer and pigs.
A Hawke's Bay apple grower says it's no longer profitable for him to export apples to the US because of the 15% tariff imposed on them by Donald Trump.
As the clock ticks towards the 3G mobile network shutdown, farmers are being warned to upgrade or risk losing connection to their supply chain.

OPINION: Winston Peters has described the decision to sell its brand to Lactalis and disperse the profit to its farmer…
OPINION: The Hound reckons a big problem with focusing too much on the wrong goal - reducing livestock emissions at…